In Which I Retreat
October 1, 2014
The weekend was marked most significantly by the Glee Club Retreat. It was the best chance to get to know the new members, and also served as a bit of a break from the hectic lifestyle I’d had up until that point. Leaving early Friday afternoon, we arrived at Camp Onas by sundown, with me lugging along a whole lot of fruit, granola and a few other assorted food supplies, for what I knew might be a difficult weekend for meals. Friday night was filled with singing, introductions, games and laughter and the lights were shut out in my room well after 2AM.
There wasn’t much of a sleep in to bed had, breakfast (two bananas and a nectarine) was to be had, and team building exercises outside in the sun. For the sake of future clubbers, I won’t go into the details (as previously) but I came out of the two/three hours of games much closer to a few people. One particularly nice guy was Bhavish Malkani, a sophomore newman who came with a whole lot of talents (more on that later).
Lunch was sandwiches which fortunately I could partake in. Also it was the first time I’d had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a great many years. Following lunch we had the presentation of ‘the newman talent show’ in which all the newmen had to present a non-singing talent. Pearl, a really friendly girl on the tech team, started it off with a sorrowful reading of a poem about bullying. Phillipe led with shakespear in many accents. More poetry from David, some oddball comedy from Mack and a few others. The highlight for most people however was Bhavish’s magic show, which comprised mostly of sleight of hand tricks. There were so well done however, that even though I had some idea of how they worked, I was still thrilled along with the rest of the audience.
Another highlight of retreat was getting to know Sam Soik and Pearl Lo a bit better. They were both very warm personalities and I spent plenty of time talking to both of them over the weekend.
Finally, late Saturday night it was time for the camp fire. This was the best part of retreat because it involved us singing our favorite songs from our repertoire, albeit without a conductor and at times a little off. However it was an amazing feeling to be surrounded by my brothers in song and spending some time reflecting on our years ahead.
After the campfire it was straight to bed for me. I woke up barely a few hours later for the drive back, and when we arrived home I spent most of the morning in bed. I had a good few hours to work and then it was back to rehearsal, this time dancing with Penn Dance again. After that, I was thoroughly drained and promptly put an end to my weekend.
In Which I Suit Up For The Heat
September 8, 2014
Today was boiling hot and stiflingly humid. I dressed for the weather in the morning and attended physics, trying my best to make friends with a few of my classmates.
After class I walked back to Hillel for lunch and during my meal received an urgent text message. I was required at Platt Performing Arts Center for Glee callbacks, so that I could help demonstrate quartet singing. This required me to dress up in full suit and bow tie, which given the sun beating down, was not the most ideal of outfits.
Following my dress change, I speed walked over to Hill House to meet a potential piano instructor for lessons this semester. The first meeting went pretty well and I was looking forward to actually learning to play properly for the first time. However, the entire time, I was sweating in my outfit and must have looked quite amusing to the instructor who was in jeans and a tshirt.
Much of my afternoon was spent singing the same song over and over, trying to maintain nuance for the different auditionees. After that was over, I had a brief break for dinner at Hillel, followed by Newman night. A ritual of induction that I won’t go into on this forum.
The night ended surprisingly early with our intro social event starting ahead of time. This left me a few moments to gather myself before another nights rest.
In Which I Sing For My Cake
September 1, 2014
The jet lag was starting to wear off. Finally. However waking up early was useful as I had need to be at J. M. Huntsman Hall at 9AM. We were to be performing at a welcome gig for freshman students at the Wharton School. After a little rehearsal and some hanging around, the students filed in and we begun to sing. This was quite possibly the worst gig I have ever been a part of. The students were loud and raucous and paid us little to no attention. I don’t begrudge them in the least, but it wasn’t the best of choices to have us perform in that venue. I could hardly hear any of us singing, except a booming in my left ear from the bass, Matt Howard.
My uniform was a little outdated by this point and needed some revisions, thus my next stop was to Macy’s in ‘Center City’ (the central business district of Philadelphia). The actual shopping part took relatively little time, and I found suitable ‘chocolate brown’ shoes without too much fuss. However, when I attempted to pay for my items, the cashier was put through on the phone to card security and I had to go through a relatively arduous process to verify my identity. Despite my best efforts the payment didn’t go through in the end, so after fifteen-minutes of verifying, I ended up just putting the amount on a different card.
With a significant delay from Macy’s, I raced back to Penn for continued rehearsals. The afternoon was dance numbers with the band and I struggled through them, not having the experience of the other members.
That evening was one of our bigger regularly scheduled gigs: convocation, the formal opening of the academic year by the university dignitaries. After the opening of ceremonies we performed ‘Go The Distance’ as a musical interlude and then to close the ceremony was ‘The Red and the Blue’, the official school song. However the best element of singing for convocation was our early access to the dessert reception immediately following. After consuming a good deal of cake and cookies, Sam Soik (a fellow Baritone) and I sought after the mythical President Amy Guttman for a photo opportunity. After some searching we had our pictures taken and were then both satisfied enough to grab some final food before returning to our dorms for the night.